William Kahrl and Henry I. Miller
March was supposed to be Women’s History Month, but at Yale University this month they were busy erasing it.
Last fall, the university sponsored a convocation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the admission of the first women undergraduates as well as 150 years of women attending the university’s graduate and professional schools. Many distinguished alumnae attended and members of the first three undergraduate classes contributed their reminiscences in video compilations as well as essays about their experience. So far, so good.
Two of the 141 women who wrote essays asked to keep their submissions anonymous for personal reasons. But when the books were published, the Yale Alumni Association had deleted the names of all the women – without asking the authors’ permission or even warning them of what had been done to their work.
After centuries of women being suppressed, diminished, pushed into the background, or having their work appropriated by others, this unexpected anonymization produced the reaction you might expect. The complaints raised in a first letter of protest were dismissed by the administration, and when the campus newspaper took up the story in February, the people responsible responded placidly, assuring readers that only a few people were upset – saying, in effect, let’s move on, there’s nothing to protest here.
This turned out to be not even a little bit true and led inevitably to an even longer letter signed by scores of people rallying to the side of the women who had been wronged. At first, the alumni association proposed producing two versions of the book, one with no names for public distribution and one with the authors identified that would be kept under wraps at the university library.
Since this only compounded their initial error, the powers that be convened a meeting of angry people including the responsible administrators, the culpable editors, and numerous representatives of their victims, for one of those “collegial” discussions that sometimes leave blood on the woodwork.
On March 18, in a “Dear Friends” letter couched in the joyless happy talk of the bureaucratically impaired, Yale announced, “Success – It’s a win-win for all!”
What did they decide? They’re going to burn the books! Destroy the evidence! According to their decree, all 500 copies of the book that dare not speak its names will be destroyed. (We are not making this up.) The digital file of this abomination will go onto the pyre as well. A new electronic version of the book, including the names of as many authors who care to be identified, will be accessible through the university library. Yale says it might try to find the money to print a “limited number” of the revised edition. But these books – if they ever come into existence – will only “be available at a time and in a manner to be determined.”
How many Oriental carpets have they got in the office of Yale President Peter Salovey to sweep this nonsense under? Sadly, this isn’t the first time Salovey’s tenure has embarrassed Yale. He has gathered about him a stumble of advisers with an unerring sense for making almost any issue worse. They have managed, by administrative fiat, to turn a genuinely historic achievement into a divisive tempest for all involved.
Yale’s librarians were not included in this meeting, and they should not agree to comply with any part of the outcome. At least one copy of the anonymized book must be retained, along with the campus newspaper’s original report, the letters of protest that it engendered, and the record of this meeting. They are now, above all else, intrinsic parts of the history of women at Yale. But all the administration wants to do is hide, cover up, and pretend for posterity that it never happened. For a school whose motto is “Light and Truth,” there is little of either in this fracas.
Where is there any accountability for this debacle? Who approved stripping out the names of these authors? That certainly wasn’t done by the co-editors on their own. Somebody higher up in the university bureaucracy had to approve this assault. How much did they spend for all the books that will be destroyed? How much will the new books cost? What were the incidental costs for the editors, the incinerators, and the staff time devoted to this farce?
These might all be good questions for the university’s governing body, the Yale Corporation, to ask. But wait. That wouldn’t do any good. All the proceedings of the corporation are conducted in secret, and the records are locked up for 50 years. That means the university might be ready to come clean about this ridiculous insult just in time for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of undergraduate Women at Yale.
William Kahrl is a former member of the editorial board and opinion page editor at the Sacramento Bee. He graduated in 1968 in the last all-male class at Yale. Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute; he is pleased to say he is not a Yalie.
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
We are going backwards not forward. As a woman of 81 years of age, I am truly disgusted with all the backstabbing hypocrisy from all corners in America. This is shameful and outrageous and shows exactly what Our Children are learning whether K through 12 or higher.
From anonymity to feminism and back again. Harvard is fighting a lawsuit for discriminating against Asians and Columbia announced separate graduation ceremonies based on color and poverty. Yale now decides to insult and to erase a recognized part of its heritage. From whence might this nonsense originate? Government research funding might not be an illogical consideration. Yale has a few billion dollars in its endowments, but this is academic and cultural fratricide. See: celebrate women.yale.edu. There is far too much to lose, even if Yale seems intent on trying. CRB/Dartmouth ’71.
Harvard has prevailed thus far — in the Federal District Court and Court of Appeals — in the suit alleging discrimination against Asians in admissions, more’s the pity: https://www.npr.org/2020/11/12/934122462/appeals-court-rules-harvard-doesnt-discriminate-against-asian-american-applicant.
Increasingly, universities and colleges have become manufacturers of their own truths.
Yale University; giving stupid a bad name since 1701.
As one of the First Women in Yale College, a contributor to the book of our reflections on coeducation, and the person who first called attention to the unwise decision to produce two versions of this book–one private with names of authors and a more widely distributed anonymized version, it is concerning that the male authors of this piece never contacted any of the Yale women alums who protested this decision and achieved the successful agreement to restore authors’ names to the essays they wrote in a new edition of the book. There a number of inaccuracies in this story that could have been prevented simply by interviewing even one of those women whose names and relevance to this story were identified in the Feb. 10 article published by the Yale Daily News. One wonders whether the male authors have an undisclosed agenda and bias, particularly as they offer no evidence for blaming Yale University President Peter Salovey.–Lydia Temoshok, Ph.D., Yale College 1972
The inaccuracies and false assumptions in this opinion disrespect and insult the hard work of Yale’s volunteer alumnae involved in the Written History Project. Messrs.Kahrl and Miller fail to note: (1) printed books *with* authors’ names have been sent to all alumnae who matriculated in Yale College in 1969 and are also being sent to individuals in the Yale community, (2) additional copies of these printed books *with* authors’ names and the original, unedited essays *with* authors’ names will be available in the university library, (3) while the version without authors’ names is being destroyed (*no* university funds were used in its printing), work is underway to produce a version *with* authors’ names that will respect the rights of authors to share their stories anonymously in a wider, more public distribution, and (4) this Written History Project is part of an effort to preserve the histories of these women and includes an Oral History Project and Archives Project, all of which have been led by alumnae volunteers, *not* the Yale Alumni Association. This information is available at https://celebratewomen.yale.edu/50th-anniversary. I would be grateful if Messrs. Kahrl and Miller contact me directly when they decide to base their opinion on facts regarding this matter in the future. – Weili Cheng, Executive Director, Yale Alumni Association